Ellicitation Techniques for Interviewing (Johnson & Weller)
Greatest impact on understanding:
Liz (5/1/10) "all participants must understand the task, each question and have the same interpretation of each question"
With a topic where the research is inconclusive, how will my participants have the same interpretation of each of my interview questions? This seems like a difficult, and near impossible, task!
Which elicitation techniques might you incorporate and why:
Liz (5/1/10) I found it interesting and encouraging to start with a descriptive question and move to more focused questions to understand the perceptions and categories of experience. I started the long interview with "Tell me what your typical day looks like..." and even though I was interviewing someone that I know, it was interesting to hear her describe her teaching day. I also asked her to describe how she plans lesson in a typical prep hour, and had her tell me the story of how a particular lesson got planned, what changes were made while teaching and what she was thinking about for the next day's lesson. There was a LOT of description in the long interview. I also scrapped the question about the pre-determined categories and asked her to categorize her reflection; that was WAY more interesting and yielded some great ideas to think about.
The Reluctant Respondent (Adler & Adler)
Which social groups might you encounter in your interview work:
Liz (5/1/10) I doubt that I'll encounter hostile respondents, but there may be secretive, reluctant or sensitive respondents in my pool of possible participants. Teaching is such a personal endeavor that some folks may be reluctant to have their reflective teaching practice be out in the open to be "judged" and analyzed. And, because I am studying novice teachers, they may be more sensitive to tenure issues and may be reluctant to give out too much information in fear that information may get to the administration and they may lose their jobs.
Which approaches would you consider using with these subjects and why:
Liz (5/1/10) Because I am doing a convenience sampling, my participants will already know who I am and may feel comfortable enough with me to be willing to participate in my study.However, I do not know any of them too well so I think that detachment may foster a reduction of resistance. I also plan to discuss and address their concerns and maintain a moral obligation of protecting their responses from administration and authority.
Transcription Quality (Poland)
Which challenges have you already experienced:
Liz (5/1/10) I have already been struggling with whether or not to omit verbatim quotes since "liberal use of verbatim quotes results in participants appearing inarticulate" and I did not think the pauses and stutters were much of a contribution to the transcript. Now I see the possible benefits of having notations for the how a phrase was said when writing up qualitative research since Poland says that transcriptions, at best, are partial accounts of the encounter between the researcher and the researched.
How did you resolve these challenges
Liz (5/1/10) I think I'll still tidy up the quotes when writing for publication, after the analysis has occurred even if I record the conversation as accurately as possible with explicit verbatim. I am not quite convinced yet, however, that I will even record the how in the interview transcript. I am more convinced than ever that I ought to be the one to transcribe the interviews, though. After seeing examples of what could happen, I think I'd rather have the relationships with the words and be tied to the voices of my interviewees than have someone else do a mediocre job of recording something that they are not interested in what-so-ever. My dissertation experience is just too valuable for that kind of margin for error.
Greatest impact on understanding:
Liz (5/1/10) "all participants must understand the task, each question and have the same interpretation of each question"
With a topic where the research is inconclusive, how will my participants have the same interpretation of each of my interview questions? This seems like a difficult, and near impossible, task!
Which elicitation techniques might you incorporate and why:
Liz (5/1/10) I found it interesting and encouraging to start with a descriptive question and move to more focused questions to understand the perceptions and categories of experience. I started the long interview with "Tell me what your typical day looks like..." and even though I was interviewing someone that I know, it was interesting to hear her describe her teaching day. I also asked her to describe how she plans lesson in a typical prep hour, and had her tell me the story of how a particular lesson got planned, what changes were made while teaching and what she was thinking about for the next day's lesson. There was a LOT of description in the long interview. I also scrapped the question about the pre-determined categories and asked her to categorize her reflection; that was WAY more interesting and yielded some great ideas to think about.
The Reluctant Respondent (Adler & Adler)
Which social groups might you encounter in your interview work:
Liz (5/1/10) I doubt that I'll encounter hostile respondents, but there may be secretive, reluctant or sensitive respondents in my pool of possible participants. Teaching is such a personal endeavor that some folks may be reluctant to have their reflective teaching practice be out in the open to be "judged" and analyzed. And, because I am studying novice teachers, they may be more sensitive to tenure issues and may be reluctant to give out too much information in fear that information may get to the administration and they may lose their jobs.
Which approaches would you consider using with these subjects and why:
Liz (5/1/10) Because I am doing a convenience sampling, my participants will already know who I am and may feel comfortable enough with me to be willing to participate in my study.However, I do not know any of them too well so I think that detachment may foster a reduction of resistance. I also plan to discuss and address their concerns and maintain a moral obligation of protecting their responses from administration and authority.
Transcription Quality (Poland)
Which challenges have you already experienced:
Liz (5/1/10) I have already been struggling with whether or not to omit verbatim quotes since "liberal use of verbatim quotes results in participants appearing inarticulate" and I did not think the pauses and stutters were much of a contribution to the transcript. Now I see the possible benefits of having notations for the how a phrase was said when writing up qualitative research since Poland says that transcriptions, at best, are partial accounts of the encounter between the researcher and the researched.
How did you resolve these challenges
Liz (5/1/10) I think I'll still tidy up the quotes when writing for publication, after the analysis has occurred even if I record the conversation as accurately as possible with explicit verbatim. I am not quite convinced yet, however, that I will even record the how in the interview transcript. I am more convinced than ever that I ought to be the one to transcribe the interviews, though. After seeing examples of what could happen, I think I'd rather have the relationships with the words and be tied to the voices of my interviewees than have someone else do a mediocre job of recording something that they are not interested in what-so-ever. My dissertation experience is just too valuable for that kind of margin for error.